Breakfast and Propositions
by b-mystique
Summary: "So unless you're looking to cook me breakfast tomorrow, I say we're done." "You shouldn't make proposals unless you're prepared for the opposing party to take you up on them." Harvey comes home to an unexpected visitor who refuses to leave. Based on 3.01 sneak preview. More Harvey/Jessica and their strained dynamic.


_**A/N:**__ My heart's a little heavy right now, but this was just a short little something I whipped up a couple of days ago and I just went ahead and figured I'd post it. It's based on the 5 minute sneak preview of 3.01. _

_**Disclaimer:**__ I own ._

~o~

"So unless you're staying to cook me breakfast tomorrow, I say we're done." Harvey snarked.

He continued to fiddle with his phone until he felt the heat of her glare burning into his face. He sighed, before tearing his eyes away from the screen to meet hers. They engaged in one of their usual stare downs before he turned his back to her again and kicked off his shoes.

"Fair enough," he heard her respond. He stalled, not sure if he heard her just right. He had dismissed her after all, and surely she was grandstanding here just to be a smartass. Surely.

"What?" He croaked as he turned to face her. He cleared his throat and didn't bother to hide the genuine disbelief. She couldn't have possibly...

"I said," she slinked up to him, the clicking of her heels as they met the wooden floor, resounding throughout the loft. She sidled up to him so close that he could smell the faintest hint of perfume, and feel the heat of her body. "Fair enough."

"Was that a proposition?" he regarded her with the mixture of amusement and dubiousness. He cocked his head to the side as he continued to loosen his tie.

"Is that what you need it to be?" she gave him the onceover, and he couldn't read anything in her eyes or her tone.

"Did you just…are you soliciting me?" he scoffed, as he looked her dead in the eye. He stepped away from her, giving him the room to really study her like that enigmatic puzzle that she was.

Unease and confusion intermingled in the pit of his stomach as he tried to make heads or tails of where she was going and what she was doing. Every now and then he found himself in the position where he wasn't quite sure what was real and what was part of their usual suggestive banter. The rapidness of her switching from being annoyed and distrustful to her being potentially playful was really catching him off guard. Things had been tense between them, and sadly, he had to admit that it threw their rapport and easy nature off immensely.

"I believe you started it first," she said coolly, as that meticulously arched brow of hers rose.

So clearly, he thought to himself, she was jesting.

"I was-"he began with a resigned sigh.

"Being a smartass? What else is new?" She responded. She crept up to him again, so close their breaths intermingled. "You shouldn't make proposals unless you're prepared for the opposing party to take you up on them," she said, so lowly and so fiercely that he wondered if he should take it for the double entendre that it possibly was. "That's 101."

"Are you drunk?" he posed, after his breathing had regulated and he could talk over the lump that had formed in his throat. He eyed her glass, with a touch of suspicion and weariness.

She scoffed. "Keeping up with the jackass theme, I see."

"You never overtly say anything about sex..." he made work of rubbing the tension out of his neck, as he stared at her unblinking. "Especially between us."

"So I only do it covertly then?" she queried. Her voice had taken on that tone of mild annoyance again. She went back to being just as reluctant and irritated with him, as she was when he first walked in.

He shrugged in response to her, eyes taking in all the uncomfortable tension between them, which was so unlike what they typically had.

"Would it help?" She asked pointedly, her posture so rigid and frigid that she was earning the "Ice Queen" moniker that the interns had labeled her with.

"Huh?" he frowned. This time, he couldn't help but keep the frustration out of his voice. He was tired, beyond tired, and whatever mind games she had for him tonight, he wasn't sure if he was up to it. There was no way in hell; after all of these years she was seriously implying that they should have sex. She wou-

"Would it help?" She repeated, slow and deliberate, as though she was speaking to an incompetent person.

"Are you serious?" he kept his voice as level and as calm as he could possibly muster, and his expression as unreadable as he could master. Inside, however, inside there was a myriad of things flowing through him that he couldn't make since of or figure out.

An eerie and tense filled silence settled between them as he furrowed his brow, studying her face, her body language, her anything and everything as he tried to tiptoe through the dangerous landmine that was their "thing". This was an entirely different game. This game, he couldn't quite make sense of, and he knew that if he didn't respond just so everything would blow to smithereens. Somehow, more was at stake now than there was a year ago. Their bond as of late was tenuous at best. They were barely keeping it together. What used to be a strong union where they could practically tell what each other was thinking was now something far removed from what he was familiar to. These days they both tiptoed around one another, not knowing what would set the other off at any given moment, doing their best to hold the pieces of their shattered friendship in their hands, even if they didn't quite make the moves to piece it together and salvage it just yet. This dance of theirs was far more convoluted than it ever had been, and this time around, far more stressful and not the least bit fun. He hated where they were now, in this fog of uncertainty, distrust, and blame. It wasn't him. It wasn't them. He let out a deep breath before staring her straight in the eye.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it." Of course he said it unconvincingly. He mentally chastised himself for not selling it. He must not have been at top form anymore because if he couldn't do anything else, he could sell the lies. So much so, that he could even buy them himself.

"But it is broke," she replied firm and even. "That's my point. It's broke and it needs to be fixed. _We_ need to be fixed because we sure as hell can't keep going on like this!"

Her impassioned statement, became even more so when he heard her voice crack just a tad towards the end. She hid it well though. She always did. She shook off whatever distress she was feeling that clearly strained her voice, and cleared her throat.

"Sex is what got your attention, Harvey. Because apparently nothing else has." She stepped back, finally giving him enough breathing room to clear his hazy thoughts.

"I thought I politely suggested that you leave," he breathed out, trying to free himself of her scent. It seemed to linger in the air around him. He was drowning in the bittersweetness of it.

"Politely? You don't do polite."

"You're going to attempt to control me in my own home now too?" he inserted a bit of humor in there to cut down some of the malice, but like everything else between them it was more forced and uncomfortable than anything else.

"What can I say? I'm controlling but it gets the job done," she made her own attempt at humor, but he noted that she did a better job at making it not sound flat. "You gave me a proposal; I'm taking you up on it," she added, with all seriousness, if the determination in her dark brown eyes was any indicator.

"Are we still talking about sex?" He asked lowly, as he couldn't resist the barest hint of a smirk.

She raised a brow at him questioningly, and shook her head. There was something she assessed, but she gave no sign of what it could have been. "I won't do breakfast unless you do dinner."

He cocked his head to the side intrigued. Even with the way things were between them, even with the perpetual state of unsettlement he found them to be in, he couldn't tamper down the wonderful mix of anticipation, warning, and fear that swirled within him. "Jess..."

"I'm serious, I'm hungry and you already ate," she said with an exasperated sigh. She rubbed her forehead and looked towards the kitchen nook, thoughtfully.

"Jess," he began again, still trying to make sense of just where they were going. "Wait, how did you know that I ate already?"

"A trip to Brooklyn? Don't act as though you didn't eat a hotdog or two," she said quietly.

She shifted on her feet, and for the first time that night, he noticed just how worn out she seemed to be. Almost as worn out as he was. She responded so nonchalantly to him, that a surge of fondness welled up in him, because he always had a way of being transparent to her. Maybe there would be hope for them after all.

"You get me more than I know," he said quietly, more to himself than to her. He could tell that she heard however, because an ominous flicker flashed across her face, and her eyes darkened.

"Sometimes I don't know you at all."

There it was again. That tense silence, enveloped them, and the air was so thick he almost couldn't breathe. He averted his eyes and made his way to his kitchen area. He was mindful that she followed him there, and was leaning against the kitchen island. He opened the refrigerator, rummaging through the sparse contents left in there, and busied himself with making a sandwich.

When he finished, he refilled her glass and slid both across the island towards her. He noticed the way her features softened just a touch at the gesture.

"You have to stop second guessing me now. You never did before," he sighed.

"You have to stop giving me reasons to. You never did that before."

He walked around the island, trying to avoid brushing up against her as he headed back towards the couch and sank down with all the grace of a refined movie star. She kicked her shoes off and followed. The plate and glass in hand. She sank down next to him and brought her feet up on the couch, making herself surprisingly comfortable given the fact that she had only been in his apartment a handful of times. Her skirt rose up her frame and his eyes wandered over her legs before he swallowed thickly and averted his eyes.

"I really don't recall giving you a key," he yawned. He leaned back into the couch and stared out into the distance at the city lights.

"I really don't recall giving you permission to change the ringtones on my phone," she quipped back, and once again she almost sounded like her old self.

"Seriously?! Like that's the same thing."

She shrugged and gave him no verbal response, and he rolled his eyes.

"Anybody else you stalk, or am I special?" He muttered.

"Just like you to always think that you're special," she sighed, as she fiddled with the gold choker around her neck.

"To you I am," he shot back without thinking. "Or at least I used to be."

He cursed the uncomfortable stillness that fell upon them once more. He truly missed when things between them used to be easy.

"So is this a boss thing, checking in on all the employees?" He snarked.

"Sure, I like to see where my money goes…" she responded breezily, and for a moment he could see just a hint of the Jessica Pearson million watt smile that he would try to bring out of her at least once a day.

"So Louis?"

"Has a shrine built to his cat," she replied as she shook her head in amusement.

They both chuckled at the thought, and it was the first time that evening that he didn't feel as though everything was closing in on him.

"Are we going to talk, ever? She asked pointedly. She turned to face him, and a tuft of hair fell forward and rested on her leather blazer.

"I thought that's what we were doing."

"You know what I mean," she practically growled, and he felt the tension rise up in his neck and shoulders again.

"You came over to chew me out I gathered. You did that. What's next, you gonna spank me?" he practically snarled as he rolled his head to the side to glare at her.

"Too easy, especially for you. The leather jacket right?" She rolled her eyes at him, and he could see her clench and unclench her fists.

"What can I say, I'm tired," he snapped.

"There's more to talk about and you know that, Harvey!"

"I thought you alluded to sex. That I can handle," he bit back sarcastically. The last thing he wanted was to rehash the same old issues they had with each other, because these days neither one of them really heard each other anyway.

"You alluded to sex first," she said coolly and annoyingly unaffected by his prickly demeanor. "I don't like to go to bed angry."

He was tempted to tell her that angry sex was the best sex. Right up there with hate sex, and crazy sex, and at that point they pretty much had all three in the bag, but somehow he didn't think that that brand of humor would sit well with them right now, and not just because it was just as intentionally suggestive as it was bitter humor. He sighed.

"There is nothing to talk about, Jess. I'm doing my job the way I've always done my job. I'm not doing anything any differently than what you used to appreciate, accept, and value. I gave you my word, and I'm standing by that. You're making it difficult when you don't trust me."

"You make it difficult when you aren't on my side," she snapped, visibly irked.

"I'm always on your side!" he bellowed, throwing his hands in the air in frustration as he leveled her with his best court glare. "Why can't you get that I'm always on your side?"

The last part came out in a whisper and the air crackled between them as neither of them refused to tear their eyes away. Both of them waited for the other to make a move or simply blink. Finally, she sighed.

"Can I just get your cooperation? Can we just communicate the way we need to? Can we..."

Her voice trailed off as she watched Harvey pick up the remote and turn on the television. Loud voices onscreen easily drowned her out.

"What are you doing?" she asked through gritted teeth. Part of him wanted to laugh at just how easy it was to get under her skin.

"Watching a movie."

"I'm talking to you."

"Yes," he said slowly, this time he took the tone of someone talking to a confused young child. Her hands trembled with the tell-tale signs that suggested she was beyond livid at the condescension. "But I told you to go. You chose not to go. We're not sleeping together, and you haven't made me breakfast," he said in one breath, his eyes falling on the screen and ignoring the murderous glare she was shooting him.

"By the way, don't make a proposition unless you're willing to follow through," He added with a smirk. "I never agreed to talk. So the way I see it, you can sit here and watch the movie with me or you can leave, but we're done talking."

"Did you just-" she growled, her voice low with anger.

"Jessica please!" He surprised himself with the forcefulness in his voice.

_She_ surprised him when she didn't persist. The mindless action movie carried on for a half hour and she made no move to leave. She didn't appear to be watching either, as he felt her eyes boring into his face the entire time. He made a conscious effort to ignore her, which was made much easier when he felt the heaviness of his eyelids and found himself drifting off.

He woke to the light pattering of rain against the window and tingling and prickling in his legs. They apparently were every bit as asleep as he had been. He wiped his eyes feeling groggy and barely alert. The TV screen was blue and the only thing he heard was the rain against the window and Jessica's soft snores.

_Jessica._

He glanced across the couch to see her resting against the arm, hair splayed across it. Her legs were stretched out and lying across his legs. That explained why his fell asleep. Her skirt had ridden up her thighs even further, exposing smooth caramel skin and more of her well-toned legs than he was accustomed to seeing. He bit his lip before reaching out and tugging her skirt down. She barely stirred and he tried not to chuckle over the woman who professed to be so alert even when she was asleep. He slipped from beneath her legs and tossed a throw over her.

He knew he avoided the inevitable discussion this time, but he wouldn't be able to put it off for long. He didn't want to talk. He just wanted then to be back to where they used to be. If she wanted him to put up with the Darby situation, and the firm merger, and the fact that he wasn't going to be a named partner, the least she could do was trust him the way that she used to. He just needed her to stop second guessing him. He slipped into his room and closed the door behind him.

When he woke again to the bright sunlight blazing down on him was all he needed to deduce that she had been in his room. Smartass that she was, she was sending a message that he shouldn't be late for work. Jackass that he was, he'd take his own sweet time getting in that morning. He sat up in bed and the plate on the nightstand caught his eye. It was still piping hot, an omelet, one of his favorites, and right beside it he found a cup of black coffee. Beside both was a note. He tensed as he glanced over the words written in Jessica's fancy script.

_I need you to let me do my job. I need you to trust me. And I need you to remember that I keep my word too._

He had to have just missed her. He sighed as he glanced over the note again, and tossed it on the bed, watching it flutter on the comforter beside him. Something else was scrawled across the back.

_With your salary you can afford better food. Buy some damn groceries._

He threw the note back on the bed and took a bite of his omelet, chuckling to himself.

One day they'll be back to where they used to be

~o~


End file.
